May 15, 2009
Please reinstate the "Uptick Rule" in its classic, simple form.
Individual companies are not commodities, and the price of their stock should be determined by the stakeholders, and not by some passers-by.
Capital markets create the resources required to build products, provide services, employ citizens and pay taxes
Uncontrolled short-sellers can vaporize those resources and collapse real entities with purely greed-driven relentless short selling -nothing to do with a company's intrinsic value.
The Uptick Rule is a simple and effective mechanism for balancing the various competing interests:
1) It eliminates short selling as a tool for driving a stock down by preventing short sales at successively lower prices without a check.
2) It prevents short sellers from accelerating a declining market by exhausting all available liquidity and leaving long sellers to sell at successively lower prices.
3) It allows for relatively unrestricted short sales in normal markets, but stops the destructive piling on.
Please reinstate the "Uptick Rule" in its classic and simple form that has proven effective through decades of use.
Thank you.